Tag: resolution

Madison, Wisconsin leads the way when it comes to welcoming Syrian refugees

AUTHOR’S NOTE: An Arabic-language translation of this English-language article is included below the English-language article. Translation is courtesy of an online translation service. Due to the online translation service not being able to translate part of the name of a member of the Madison, Wisconsin Common Council into Arabic script, she is referred to in the Arabic translation by the elected office that she holds.

يتم تضمين ترجمة عربية-لغة هذه المادة باللغة الإنجليزية تحت المادة باللغة الإنجليزية: المؤلف ملاحظة. الترجمة هي من باب المجاملة خدمة الترجمة على الإنترنت. يرجع ذلك إلى خدمة الترجمة الفورية لعدم تمكنه من ترجمة جزء من اسم عضوا في ماديسون، المجلس المشترك ولاية ويسكونسن في الكتابة العربية، وقالت انها المشار إليها في الترجمة العربية من قبل المكتب المنتخبين أنها تحمل.

The Common Council of the City of Madison, Wisconsin unanimously passed a non-binding resolution saying that Wisconsin’s second-largest city will welcome Syrian refugees:

…The Madison Common Council sent a unanimous message Tuesday that the city will accept Syrian refugees.

[…]

The resolution is meant to send a message that is in line with the city’s long history of accepting refugees. The resolution comes a couple weeks after Gov. Scott Walker said any new Syrian refugees would not be welcome in Wisconsin.

[…]

“I think it’s just to send a message about who we are as a Madison,” Alderwoman Shiva Bidar-Sielaff said. “Regardless of the redirect from anybody else, I think it’s just a statement about us and Madison and what we stand for.”

While far-right conservatives pander to Islamophobic bigots, Madison leads the way when it comes to human decency and upholding the American tradition of welcoming immigrants to this great country.

أصدر مجلس المشترك لمدينة ماديسون ويسكونسن بالإجماع على قرار غير ملزم قائلا ان ثاني أكبر مدينة في ولاية ويسكونسن سيرحبون اللاجئين السوريين:

… أرسل مجلس المشترك ماديسون رسالة بالإجماع الثلاثاء أن المدينة لن تقبل اللاجئين السوريين.

[…]

ويهدف القرار لإرسال رسالة مفادها أن يتماشى مع تاريخ المدينة الطويل في قبول اللاجئين. ويأتي القرار بعد بضعة أسابيع وقال محافظ سكوت ووكر أن أي لاجئ سوري الجديد لن يكون موضع ترحيب في ولاية ويسكونسن.

[…]

واضاف “اعتقد انها مجرد لإرسال رسالة حول ما نحن عليه باعتباره ماديسون”، وعضو المجلس المشترك من جناح الخامس قال. “بغض النظر عن إعادة توجيه من أي شخص آخر، وأعتقد أنه مجرد بيان عنا وماديسون وما نمثله.”

في حين المحافظين اليميني المتطرف باندر لالمتعصبين ضد الإسلام والتخويف، ماديسون سباقة عندما يتعلق الأمر اللياقة البشري والحفاظ على التقاليد الأميركية الترحيب المهاجرين إلى هذا البلد العظيم.

Scott Walker is on the wrong side of history when it comes to gay adults in the Boy Scouts

Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker has frequently mentioned the fact that he was an Eagle Scout when he was younger on the campaign trail, largely due to having been a politician virtually his entire adult life and having very few accomplishments outside of politics to cite on the campaign trail.

However, what Walker recently said about the Boy Scouts of America is absolutely disgusting. After the Boy Scouts’ National Executive Committee recommended a resolution to the Boy Scouts’ National Executive Board that, if adopted by the executive board, would end the ban on gay adults serving as Boy Scout volunteers and employees, Walker publicly defended the ban on gay adults in the Boy Scouts. Even worse, Walker compared LGBT people to pedophiles, which is a total characterization of the vast majority of LGBT people in this country. Here’s what Walker said:

I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.

I’m not a fan of the Boy Scouts, since they’re a quasi-religious organization that openly discriminates against atheists and others who are not of a religious faith of any kind. However, for Walker to claim that discriminatory policies against LGBT people “protected children” amounts to blatantly stirring up homophobia, since Walker is implying that LGBT people are pedophiles, which is not true for the vast majority of LGBT people. This kind of attack from Walker is straight out of the same playbook that the bible-thumping religious right in this country has used for decades in opposition to LGBT rights and in support of discrimination against LGBT people.

Furthermore, the President of the United States is traditionally the honorary president of the Boy Scouts, so, if the Boy Scouts continue with that tradition after the 2016 elections, Scott Walker is effectively running for honorary president of the Boy Scouts by running for President of the United States. For an overt bigot like Walker to be the chief executive of the United States and the honorary leader of the Boy Scouts would be a national travesty.

La Salle County, Illinois Board overwhelmingly opposes Bruce Rauner’s wage theft agenda

With 23 members of the La Salle County, Illinois Board voting in favor of a non-binding resolution opposing Bruce Rauner’s wage theft agenda, 2 members voting in opposition, and 4 members not voting either in favor or in opposition for whatever reason, the La Salle County, Illinois Board has officially adopted a resolution opposing Bruce Rauner’s wage theft agenda:

The La Salle County Board overwhelmingly expressed its opposition to “right to work” laws by passing a resolution with a 23 to 2 vote.

Before the meeting, a crowd gathered outside of the Ottawa Knights of Columbus in support of the resolution. The meeting started about 15 minutes late as supporters of the resolution were filing through security after holding signs outside the meeting.

Many of those labor union supporters, including some wearing green American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees shirts, packed the audience.

The law would give employees the right to decide whether or not to join or financially support a union.

La Salle County is located between Peoria and Chicago, including communities like Ottawa, La Salle, Mendota, Marseilles, and most of Streator. The Illinois River runs through the middle of La Salle County, flowing from east to west in that portion of the state.

The “right-to-work” laws that the La Salle County Board referenced in their resolution are what I like to call wage theft laws, as they allow non-union workers at unionized workplaces to effectively steal wages and other benefits negotiated by labor unions by not paying union dues or other types of fees. To put that another way, wage theft laws are the moral equivalent of shoplifting, and I’m glad that the La Salle County Board told Rauner that a majority of their members oppose his wage theft agenda.